1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus or more particularly to a facsimile apparatus having a plurality of lines connected thereto and capable of simultaneous communications through each line.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, a facsimile apparatus having a plurality of lines connected thereto has been prevailing, and it has become possible to make simultaneous communications with different parties to call by connecting thereto a facsimile communication network or ISDN, besides the telephone network.
In a facsimile apparatus having (for example) two lines connected thereto, while facsimile transmission is being performed through one line by utilizing memory transmission or memory reception functions, facsimile reception may be performed through the other line. Or two facsimile receptions or two facsimile transmissions may be simultaneously conducted in parallel through both lines.
In a conventional facsimile device, the outputting sequence onto the recording paper follows the reception sequence (reception starting sequence) when different facsimile receptions are carried out in parallel through a plurality of lines. For this reason, when an initially received data has been transmitted in high quality image mode (fine mode) thus the volume of data is large and the communication time increases, the hard copy of a subsequently received data where the volume of data is small has to wait until the hard copy of the initially incoming one has been completed.
In other words, even if this facsimile system is provided with a page printer with which high speed printing has been realized, when the initially incoming data is of a large data quantity per one page and thus requiring an increased amount of time before delivering the hard copy, a hard copy of a later incoming data cannot be delivered even though its first page content has been quickly stored, until the hard copy of the initial data has been delivered. As a result, this system as a whole tends to take long time for delivering the hard copy.
Some conventional facsimile devices capable of processing a plurality of printing demand from a plurality of superior devices have proposed storing printing data in an external storage unit when the data cannot be immediately printed out due to the printer""s currently being engaged with another printing (Japanese Paten Application 7-239763, for example). The stored printing data are then printed out as soon as the printer becomes available.
However, in such conventional devices, the outputting sequence onto the recording paper follows the reception sequence (storage starting sequence). That is, even if a later arriving data of small data quantity completes the storage of its first one page content earlier than the previously arriving data, it (the later arriving data) still has to wait for its printing out until the printing of the earlier arriving data is over. In short, none of these conventional facsimiles have disclosed means for making the later arriving data like described above preferentially occupy the printer when it quickly finishes its storage.
Conceived in view of the aforementioned situation, it is an object of the present invention to propose a facsimile apparatus which enables to reduce the time required for delivering the hard copy from the system as a whole by controlling the hard copy delivery sequence of the received data through a plurality of lines.
For attainment of the above-described object, a first aspect of the present invention is proposed where a facsimile device having a plurality of lines connected thereto includes: storage means for storing reception time of each received data, the reception time being time at which reception of first one page content of each received data is complete; and control means for delivering hard copies of each received data in a time-sequence starting from the one of which the reception time is the oldest.
Since the storage means may successively make a plurality of data reception through the same line and sequentially store the received data in the memory, the reception time when reception of one page content has been completed is stored for each data reception and not for each line. If it is so arranged beforehand that a plurality of reception times may be stored for each line, the storage capacity of the storage means as a whole increases, and therefore a measure to ensure provision of the storage regions is taken every time a data reception is started through each line.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the printing sequence of the received data is determined based on the reception completed time at which the storage of one page content of each data is complete. Thus, even if the earlier incoming data received through one line has large data quantity thus requiring a long time before providing its hard copy, a hard copy of a later incoming data of smaller quantity received through another line may be provided as soon as the storage of its one page content is complete. As a result, the time taken for providing overall hard copies can be significantly reduced compared to a conventional device.
As a second aspect of the present invention, the control means of the facsimile device described above delivers the hard copies of each received data in a sequence that is preset in the storage means if a plurality of the received data share the same oldest reception time.
The predetermined sequence includes the sequence of numbers (table numbers) preliminarily assigned to the storage regions secured for respective lines when the data reception has been started therethrough and the storage starting sequence or the incoming sequence etc.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, even if there are a plurality of data receptions that share the same oldest reception complete time of one page content, a hard copy of each received data may be delivered without any confusion in a preset sequence.
As a third aspect of the present invention, the control means of the facsimile device of the first or second aspect, once the hard copy of a received data has started, does not provide hard copies of other received data until the hard copy of the whole page content (of the currently being delivered one) has been delivered. This, when a hard copy of one received data has begun to output, prevents other different received data from being delivered as hard copies and mixed between pages of the currently being delivered one.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, once the delivery of hard copy of one received data has been started, hard copies of other received data are not delivered until the output of all pages of the one data is complete. Therefore, outputs of different received data of different reception time can not be mixed between pages.